


Give Me Back My Heart

by Hum My Name (My_Kind_of_Crazy)



Series: Show That Love's Worth Running To [3]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: ... for now, Angst, BUT WE'LL GET THERE ON GOD WE'LL GET TO THE COMFORT EVENTUALLY, Cursed Jaskier | Dandelion, Curses, Episode: s01e06 Rare Species, Heartbreak, Hurt No Comfort, Inspired by Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart, Jaskier | Dandelion Has Feelings, M/M, Pining, Sad Jaskier | Dandelion, The Mountain Scene (tm), Unrequited Love, We could go to the coast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:14:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28920399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Kind_of_Crazy/pseuds/Hum%20My%20Name
Summary: Jaskier discovers that Geralt might be the key to breaking the curse of his clock-heart. He just needs to make Geralt understand this without dying or confessing his love in the process.<>“Geralt.” He whispers as though it’s a betrayal, a secret he’s not yet revealed to even himself. The press of the name to his tongue, though, stretches to his chest— ignites the never-ending fire of his heart. He winces, gritting his teeth against the flare of pain. “Geralt has my heart, I know he does.”
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Show That Love's Worth Running To [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774585
Comments: 13
Kudos: 130





	Give Me Back My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this fic and the quote at the beginning are from Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart. 
> 
> This continues from the rest of the series so if you've been keeping up with that, it should make a bit more sense! 
> 
> Speaking of things making sense, I reiterate that it's my AU and I get to make the rules (meaning that this all makes sense in my head, shhhh, just play along, there are no rules here at all)
> 
> The next update for this series will be where things get a bit more exciting, so look out for that! I'll try my best to post it faster than I did this one, haha. 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

> _ “ I love you crookedly because my heart's been unhinged from birth. The doctors gave me strict instructions not to fall in love: my fragile clockwork heart would never survive. But when you gave me a dose of love so powerful - far beyond my wildest dreams - that I felt able to confront anything for you, I decided to put my life in your hands.” _
> 
> _ ―  **Mathias Malzieu,** **La Mécanique du cœur** _

Jaskier’s beginning to despise mages.

“Repeat that, please,” Jaskier says slowly, hands trembling at his side. “If you don’t mind.”

The mage’s lips twist down into a sharp grimace, the sides of her eyes wrinkling as she stands amongst dried plants and old oils. At a stall in one of Oxenfurt’s marketplaces, she looks like any common herbalist.

Her voice, though— cracked and melodic, all at once— is just how Jaskier remembers it from the day she cursed his heart.

“I do mind,” she says. “There’s no point in tracking me down if you won’t listen to what I have to say.”

Only years of training keep Jaskier from blowing up at her, deep breaths easing the frustration gripping the clock hands of his heart. 

“There’s no point in tracking you down if you can’t help, anyway,” he says, his voice just barely on the tip of a snarl. “Listen, you owe me—”

“A hearty ‘you’re welcome’ and nothing more,” she cuts in— this mage named Acacia, her voice as thorny as the plants she’s collected. “I saved your life, boy. Would you make me regret it?”

Jaskier groans, remembering all too vividly the similar arguments with his mother. It’s no wonder this woman was hired so readily at the Pankratz home. 

Still, that was before danger slipped beneath his ribs. That was before his life started ticking away with each stolen glance at— 

“What point is a life if I can’t love? Can’t feel passion or anger or anything more than the numbed down versions you’ve taught me?” He asks.

Acacia scoffs, turning her head away. “You only say that because you’re a poet. You fantasize about these things, never knowing the pain they could bring.”

“But it’s because I’m a poet that I must know them!” Jaskier pleads, drawing the attention of a merchant across from them. He ignores the looks tossed his way, twisting his fist into the fabric above his heart.

“There’s more to write of than simply love,” Acacia says, pinning him once more with her gaze. “Stick to songs of witchers. That’s your safest choice.”

As if on cue, Jaskier’s chest twinges. He gasps sharply at the feeling of his clock hands twisting, stretching through his skin with a sensation like beetles crawling across his chest. His hand falls from his doublet, and Acacia’s eyes sharpen.

“The clock,” she breathes, the most interested she’s seemed in the conversation since Jaskier first appeared to her. “You’ve done something to it.”

“I’ve done nothing,” Jaskier spits through gritted teeth. It’s the truth, for the most part. He’d done nothing to choose to fall for the witcher, nothing to condemn himself to the slow ticking of emotion swelling in his chest. If he could turn his back on it, turn it off or turn away, he’d—

He’d still choose the same thing. It’s been years since he first felt the slip into the dangerous thing he won’t call love— the stumbling of his heart, the collapse of his chest— and, in all that time, he never once walked away from Geralt’s side. Sure, they’d part for winter, but there’s never been a spring where Jaskier hadn’t known where to go. There’s never been a day where his heart didn’t burn— painfully, achingly— for a man who knew nothing of the reason for Jaskier’s erratic pulse.

Always with Geralt, no matter the price. 

Finally, though, he’d found a certain mage. Finally, though, there’s hope that he won’t need to pay such a price any longer.

“You have!” Acacia says, gripping his wrist and tugging him forward. His eyes narrow— darker than they were when he was younger, but with no more wrinkles than before. “You’ve gone and fallen in lo—”

“Don’t say it!” Jaskier snaps, tugging his wrist away. “Don’t say it, just— just  _ help  _ it.”

Acacia pauses, arms folding gently over her chest. 

“Help it.” The words plop onto the ground before them, flapping like fish. “You mean I should remove the spell keeping you alive.”

Jaskier winces lightly. “If you can, yes. Preferably without killing me.”

“Have you any idea how hard it was to place it there in the first place? To balance your life into gears and magic? Melitele’s mercy, you believe unwinding it is so easy?” Acacia asks, tossing her hands in the air. “That I can wave my hands and be done with it?”

Jaskier had rather hoped that would be the case but something about Acacia’s tone leaves him feeling a bit foolish for the thought. 

“Well, what would you suggest I do?” He asks instead, avoiding her question.

“What have you been doing?” Acacia asks. And—

Well. That’s not really a question Jaskier’s considered before. What’s he supposed to say? Admit to ignoring the never-ending twists of his heart? Say he’s been drinking more, flirting with strangers and bedding anyone who doesn’t look like a certain witcher? That he’s losing sleep, fingers pressed to the rough fabric of his undershirt as though he could capture the clock-hands before they go too far? Or that, when he does sleep, it’s nothing but nightmares of the gears in his heart falling out, of Geralt blaming himself for the blood spilling from Jaskier’s chest? 

That he’d prefer to do nothing but, over time, nothing has felt like a snake coiled around his ribs— a viper simply waiting for a chance to attack?

“I’ve—” He looks at his feet, at his hands, at the ridiculous heart-shaped cloud passing by overhead. “I’ve been thinking that I’d quite like to confess my feelings, if that’s alright with you.”

Not an eloquent answer, but at least it doesn’t make him sound pathetic.

Acacia’s eyes soften the slimmest amount, the shade of soil rather than mud. It’s not reassuring.

“And there it is,” she says. “The true reason you’ve sought me out.”

Jaskier might have denied it if he’d thought there’d be any way for the words to fit past the tightening of his throat. Instead, he simply nods.

Acacia lifts a careful hand, fingers lightly pressing to the place above his heart. She barely touches, but something twists inside Jaskier’s skin— springs coiling, gears turning; the flutter of chaos threading through his skin once more, linking hands with the spell placed upon him before he knew what magic could do.

Jaskier holds his breath, hands twitching at his side. He fears that, if he moves, something precious will shatter— perhaps it will be Acacia’s focus, perhaps it will be his own heart. He keeps as still as he can, not even daring to look away from the sweat beading along Acacia’s brow.

When she pulls her hand away, though, Jaskier can still hear the dreaded ticking of his own cursed heart.

“What?” He gasps out the breath he’d held, heaving for air. “You—”

“It’s not bound to me,” Acacia says, her voice as wondrous as it is apologetic. “It’s my spell within your skin, but my magic no longer commands it.”

“Is that even possible?” The question slips out in a haze of panic, Jaskier’s tongue tripping against his teeth as he stumbles and stutters for explanation. “How do you just lose control of something like that? Did you forget about it? Lose it in a game of cards? Did— oh, gods— did someone  _ else  _ take control?”

“I’d very much like to know the same thing,” Acacia says, brows knitted together. She stares intently at that spot on Jaskier’s chest, looking as though she can see through his shirts and to his skin. Jaskier wouldn’t doubt that she can, his chest itching from her gaze. “I don’t know why or how, but the power shifted to someone— or something— else long before you came here. Have you touched any strange artifacts? Made any ominous deals?”

“Yes,” Jaskier spits, a layer of vitriol resting heavily over his tone. “Because I’d so easily play with the one thing I’ve been told, all my life, to protect.”

“Well, you went and fell in love, so I wouldn’t put it past you,” Acacia says with just as much venom in her voice. “The most important rule, Julian, really.”

“It’s Jaskier, and it’s a stupid rule.” Jaskier’s aware he sounds like he did when he was twelve, stomping his feet and pouting because he can’t poke at the pretty lines on his chest. No, he doesn’t care.

He’s wondering how long he has until his feelings for Geralt kill him when Acacia takes hold of his wrist and makes it clear this conversation is far from done.

“It’s a rule that’s kept you alive this long,” she says, though her frustration fades into urgency with each word. “Irritating as you are, I am fond of you. Can you think of any way this might have happened? Any reason for this to shift?”

Jaskier doesn’t need to think very long. His heart reveals the answer before his mind can, shading his thoughts in silver and golden hues. A growl here, a snarl there— a witcher watching him with no knowledge of the clock that beats beneath fine fabrics and colors.

“Geralt.” He whispers as though it’s a betrayal, a secret he’s not yet revealed to even himself. The press of the name to his tongue, though, stretches to his chest— ignites the never-ending fire of his heart. He winces, gritting his teeth against the flare of pain. “Geralt has my heart, I know he does.”

“You think he—”

“I think,” Jaskier runs his tongue across the roof of his mouth, trying to rid himself of the cottony feeling, “that I’ve always been too poetic for my own good, and it wouldn’t surprise me if my own fool heart attached itself to someone like him.”

It’s too much to admit in the middle of the afternoon amidst merchants and traders, but Acacia watches him as though she can’t hear the bustle around her; Jaskier clings to her attention, tuning the rest of the world out.

“The magic’s embedded in your skin. I suppose a strong enough thought— no matter how subconscious— could, theoretically, take control of it. If you imagined giving your heart to him, the chaos could take it literally,” Acacia muses, the skin around her lips wrinkling as she thinks. “And witchers have enough understanding of chaos that, hypothetically, it could find a place in him to root in.”

Jaskier does not linger on the thought of any piece of him finding a place to stick in Geralt. He does  _ not _ .

“So, what happens?” Jaskier asks, shuffling his weight from each foot uneasily. “Do I confess to him anyway? Hope for the best or—”

“No!” Acacia’s shout draws the attention of a few birds who’d been pecking at the dirt. “Do you pay attention? Confessing your love will kill you. Kissing him will kill you. Having him love you back  _ will kill you _ .”

Jaskier bites his tongue, holding back his complaints. His heart ticks faster— fearful and enraged.

Acacia presses her fingers to her temples, eyes scrunching shut as she thinks.

“You need to have him release his hold on your heart. Find the magic’s new source, and give it back,” she says. “Once he does that, I’ll be able to mess with the spell without stopping your heart. Hopefully.”

“Hopefully.” The word escapes Jaskier in a bout of disbelieving laughter. “And I just explain this to him and leave out the part about why it happened? Pretend that all my friends have equal chances of killing me? Is that it?”

“It’s the only option,” Acacia says. “So, yes.”

“Wonderful,” Jaskier spits. “Just… wonderful.”

Acacia ignores his tone, waving her hands through the air as she explains. “It won’t be simple— you may need to guide him through it. Help him find the thread that connects him to you, then cut it. All metaphorically, of course.”

“Of course,” Jaskier sighs. “And what will happen when we do?”

“You’ll feel a change, I’m sure.” It’s incredibly unhelpful but Acacia doesn’t seem to notice or care. 

“Ah, yes,” Jaskier says. “Sounds perfectly safe and sane.”

Still, even as Jaskier complains, he already knows what he’ll do. Not the exact wording or timing but— when it’s right, he’ll ask Geralt to release his hold. Then, once he’s traveled back to Acacia and freed his heart from clock hands and thorns, he’ll find Geralt once more. He’ll explain; he’ll confess.

Whether or not Geralt returns the sentiment, well— that’s not in Jaskier’s control, no matter how much he’d like for it to be. At least the lack of certainty will add a fine layer of tension to the ballad, should the ending be worthy of such a tribute.

Though, it does bring up a good point— a point that twists his heart in circles, catches his lungs with thorns and threats.

“What happens if he breaks my heart?” Jaskier asks. “Before I can break the spell?”

Acacia’s eyes grow distant, her head tilting to the side as she thinks.

“Huh,” she says. “I don’t know.”

<><><> <><><> <><><>

“What’s wrong?” 

Geralt asks the question the next time they meet, skipping over any other greeting in favor of furrowing his brows at Jaskier with a slight scowl.

“My shoe has a pebble in it,” Jaskier says on instinct, one of a thousand excuses yanked from his mind. “Unless you’re referring to the trembling— to which I would point to the snow still stuck on the ground.”

Geralt makes a small grunt though he doesn’t quite seem to believe Jaskier’s claims. No matter, if he wants to ask about Jaskier’s sorrowful scent— or shaky smile or whatever witchery thing he senses on him now— he’ll have to ask  _ nicely _ . 

It’s Geralt, though, so he only marches past him and into the stables.

“Hello, Jaskier,” Jaskier says to himself, following behind Geralt. “Good to see you, Jaskier.”

“Hm.”

Well, at least it’s proof Geralt’s heard him.

Jaskier stands propped against the stable doors as Geralt brushes down Roach, the actual stable hands frightened away by his glare when they offered to do it for him. Alone— or, as alone as he can get with Jaskier as a tag along— Geralt mutters to his horse. What he says, Jaskier can’t hear.

For once, he’s distracted by something other than Geralt.

His heart doesn’t ache as much if he stares at a piece of hay near Geralt’s foot, or if he chews his lip and hums to himself. His clock doesn’t tick quite so rapidly if he thinks of things other than Geralt’s soft tone, his small smile, the way he rests his head against Roach’s neck.

Instead, Jaskier thinks back to Acacia’s words. Her warning, if he dares to be so dramatic about it. Her impossible task, her declaration that he must request his heart back from a man who doesn’t know he has it.

Not quite so simple when faced with the man himself. Every statement Jaskier’s prepared sounds far too obvious now. 

“Even your thinking is loud,” Geralt says after a moment, setting aside Roach’s brush. She’s prepared for a night here; Jaskier must have been zoning out for longer than he’d meant.

“You should be used to it at this point,” Jaskier says, shoving away from the wall. The sunlight leaking in from behind him hits Geralt between the eyes, gold dancing upon gold, and Jaskier forces himself to look away. “Or have you forgotten how long we’ve known each other?”

He wonders if Geralt will say it, will admit they’ve been friends for nearly two decades. One decade of nothing more than safe adventures with a companion, Jaskier laughing in the face of monsters and mages, never once expecting the true threat soon to befall him. For the second decade together has been nothing more than twisting cogs, tightened gears and time slipping away with each breath he takes.

But Geralt says nothing, shrugging and turning his head so his eyes are in the shadows once more.

Still, Jaskier’s heart ticks.

He could say it now, couldn’t he? This could be a place for small revelations, tiny requests. They could make this stable someplace special—  _ “Geralt, remember that time when I asked you for my heart?”  _ They could laugh about it, years from now— the way Jaskier’s voice will certainly tremble, the way his words will sound half-formed. Jaskier will tease the way Geralt won’t understand, at first; then, he’ll smile fondly at how Geralt will suddenly understand all at once.

_ “Geralt,”  _ he could say, smiling and smirking and holding his head high.  _ “There’s something I need to tell you…” _

But this place stinks of horse shit and there are drunken men laughing in the building attached. This place is a bit too cool, a bit too mundane. This place is just like any place, and Jaskier likes to think his heart deserves better than that.

He likes to believe, at least, that all those reasons are more dignified than admitting that he’s afraid.

Funny, though, how fear’s allowed to fit within his chest. No anger, no love, no gentle curiosities; Jaskier’s only ever been permitted to fill that space with fear.

So, like a practiced cheat sliding into a game of cards, a momentary twinge of panic picks up the hands of his heart.

A gasp. A faltered breath. 

Geralt’s nose twitches. His lips tighten.

He’s always hated the smell of fear.

“We should eat. Sleep.” He’s already walking past Jaskier, steps hurried as though he can escape whatever scent Jaskier’s driving him away with now. Once, he told Jaskier that fear is a sour taste in the back of his throat, a rusted hint of drying blood caught in the air. Jaskier tried to capture the feeling for a song but could never get it quite right. “We have to leave early tomorrow.”

Tomorrow— for some unknown beast in the mountains, hunting for some villagers who’d sooner take coin than give it. Geralt had said it could be dangerous; he’d said it would be safer for Jaskier to stay behind.

Now, though, he’s saying  _ we _ — and Jaskier’s heart flinches for a reason other than fright.

“Perhaps I’ll have a chance to finish that new song I’m writing.” Jaskier skips to catch up with Geralt, catching the sunset in his eyes as he follows him with a wilting grin. A song about garroters and paths— a worst case scenario ballad, really, written in one of his more maudlin moods. 

Maybe he can write a song about his heart, ask for it back in that way. It’s an idea he’d consider more seriously if he trusted Geralt to see past the pretty words and metaphors. 

“Perhaps I’ll leave you behind, after all,” Geralt says, responding to a thought Jaskier’s already forgotten he’d had. 

But Jaskier remembers well enough to smile, to shove and tease back. 

Tomorrow, perhaps. He’ll ask for his heart tomorrow. 

He’s running out of time but that, at least, still means there’s time left, at all.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Some unknown beast at the edge of the mountains leads to strangers and better travel companions, to dragon hunts and sorceress charms. 

His clock ticks to the beat of murdered knights and dwarven trails, shortcuts that feel like traps. His heart stutters over seconds and minutes when Geralt nearly falls, trying to save the old man who brought them here.

Stony silences, an adventure twisting into tragedy as easily as the sun leaking those red-gold shades over Geralt’s tightened jaw.

Others make camp, too close to the cliffs for Jaskier’s liking. There’s a tension in his shoulders; his swords rest at his side but his hands twitch as though aching for a shield.

Jaskier hesitates. His fingers spin circles against each other, fidgeting to the same cycle of his heart. He could count hours like this. Watching the witcher, holding his breath— he could count lifetimes.

But—

Life is short. His heart’s still wrapped around Geralt’s wrists, his bones.

And, so—

“You did your best.” The words are too much; the words are not enough. “There’s nothing else you could have done.”

He doesn’t like the words even as he says them, wincing at his own stumbling tone. 

Geralt keeps still, eyes hard against the light of the fading day. The threat of dusk rests upon their shoulders, a weight that nearly breaks Jaskier as he settles on the stone at Geralt’s side.

He takes a breath. He feels his heart twisting against his chest— ticking ticking ticking tick—

“We could go to the coast,” he says. “Get away for awhile.”

And, once those words start, it’s hard to make them stop. Sea-salt touches the tip of his tongue, ticking through his throat as he remembers waves and tides— beaches and places that smell of home. 

Geralt would probably like the sun that shone upon the sand. He’d probably like the chance to breathe, to escape, to exist and have nothing more asked of him.

(A part of Jaskier’s mind wonders if Geralt would probably hate him for asking, for believing a witcher would want anything so calm. Because Geralt is death and destiny, heroics and—

Jaskier could be all those things, too. His palm over his ticking chest; he could be heartbreak)

Geralt asks if Jaskier’s talking about songs but Jaskier has never felt less like a ballad than in this moment.

_ Just thinking about what pleases me— _

“Geralt,” he chokes. “There’s something I should tell you.”

Can Geralt hear the way Jaskier’s breaths are shallow and panicked? Can he smell the sweat on his palms, the chills on the back of his neck?

Jaskier’s heart burns when he imagines confessing anything to Geralt, but he’d rather risk his death than hang onto the ache of never knowing.

An old man letting go of a rope. Is this how Borch felt?

“Hm,” Geralt says. Only  _ hm. _

A band tightens across Jaskier’s chest. 

He closes his eyes. He thinks of the coast.

“It’s about my heart.”

Another  _ hm _ . Another huff.

Jaskier takes a breath, wishing it to be steadier than it is. He opens his eyes and looks up at the sky.

“Isn’t it always about your heart?” Geralt asks. Jaskier lets out a small laugh. 

“I suppose, as a bard, it might seem that way,” he says, “but, this time…”

This time, he wants Geralt to see him and care about what he sees. He wants Geralt to want to hear what he has to say, to turn and look at golden threads and ticking clock-hands and wonder why it’s there. He wants to leave this cursed mountain with Geralt, to turn their back and focus on brighter things.

He wants to break this fucking curse and just live for once in his life.

“I should have told you before this— there are no rules against it— but, I think, I was afraid.” Jaskier’s stalling, he knows. His heart’s a brand against his chest, a fire caught beneath his shirts, and he lifts a hand to his doublet’s buttons. He toys with them, worrying his lip with his teeth. “To be honest, the only reason I’m saying something now is because, well, you see. It’s gotten complicated so—”

“Jaskier.” Geralt’s tone is strange, reminiscent of how he sounded that one time a djinn attacked Jaskier’s throat— half-strangled, half-something that Oxenfurt’s scholars have yet to name.

“Right.” Jaskier swallows. He looks away from Geralt, his fingers slowing undoing one button. Words slip from his mind without warning, and he finds he has no idea what to say. That he’s cursed? That he’s hurting? That he needs Geralt to let go of something else today? His breath hitches in his throat. “It’s just that my heart—”

Geralt grunts so suddenly that Jaskier stops, turning his head as Geralt stands. 

“Geralt?” He asks, but Geralt won’t look at him.

“Not tonight.” It’s all Geralt says, sounding almost defeated. “Jaskier, just— I can’t do this tonight.”

Clocks don’t shatter. They’ll stop or skip a minute, they’ll count backwards, they’ll rust and grow old with the same time they measure. But they don’t crumble. They don’t implode. 

Then why, Jaskier wonders, does it feel as though every cog and screw has been dropped to the stones? Cracking under careless feet, collapsing into dust? More than the burning of before, Jaskier is sure his clock bleeds.

He gasps sharply, hand pressing flat to his chest even as Geralt turns away. Within him, something tugs. Within him, something tightens to the point before a snap.

“Oh,” he says. “Okay.”

But Geralt’s already turned his back, walking in the opposite direction.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

That night, Jaskier eases himself onto the thin bedroll and wishes the others a pleasant rest with a half-hearted innuendo about keeping warm. 

Everything, recently, has felt somewhat half-hearted.

He doesn’t sleep, cheek pressed to unforgiving rocks and his lute case tucked beneath his arm lest someone try to steal it in the night. He’s uncomfortable and he’s cold and he’s tired and he’s—

“Alone.” The word is whispered between two trembling lips, so hushed he barely hears himself. It’s late, past the time of dying embers and rising stars. The sky is nothing but emptiness and Jaskier faces it alone. 

Loneliness is a terrible sedative. 

It could be worse, Jaskier thinks. It could be cold, freezing, snowing or raining or the like. There could be monsters on the edge of the camp, prowling around him with growls and snarls. He could be closer to the drop off this mountain. He could be hurt and bleeding out.

He could have had Geralt reject him entirely. He could have had Geralt be obvious about the way he snuck into Yennefer’s tent. 

Jaskier’s alone but, at least, he can pretend he hasn’t been abandoned.

His heart clicks. It sounds like the whisper of  _ “not yet.” _

Jaskier rolls onto his back, staring up at passing stars and drifting clouds. It’s easy to glare at nothing and pretend there’s something there— some god or goddess cursing him— than it is to admit that he was doomed from the start. 

A fool born with a hole in his heart— it feels as though it never left. 

The universe must be having a hell of a laugh right now.

His hand over his chest, the ticking of his heart against his palm. It’s nothing but a habit— long past the point of comforting. He lets out a breath, sinking further into the ground. 

Maybe, if he’s lucky, the cliffs and dragons will break him before his heart can.

_ Not yet,  _ his heart whispers.  _ Not yet. _

He falls asleep as dawn creeps across the horizon, a bleeding of red and orange and gold. 

He falls asleep the way he did as a child— his hand above his heart, the tickings caught in his head.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Geralt does more than reject or forget him. Geralt all but admits that he  _ hates  _ him.

“If life could give me one blessing…”

The words imprison Jaskier in his own mind, buzzing about him and stinging like bees. Twenty-two years play over his eyes in a matter of seconds— meeting a witcher in a rotting tavern, befriending him and wanting the feeling to be reciprocated. He remembers standing by his side as they negotiated contracts, watching with his heart in his throat as he fought monsters. He thinks of hundreds of nights camping together, hundreds of mornings where he’d wake to Geralt’s voice.

And, now, that same voice curses each of those memories. That same witcher— that same man— wishes for those memories to have never been.

He asked for Jaskier to be off his hands and turned away, Jaskier stuck staring at his back. 

This is the part, Jaskier thinks, where his heart should burst. Anger frustrates the clock-hands; love makes it spin too fast. Heartbreak should ruin it entirely, should catch it aflame. It should lose track of itself, falling to pieces to match the broken sound caught in the back of Jaskier’s throat.

His lips form words that he can’t recognize, shaping a goodbye that sounds like an apology. He takes a step back; his mind drifts away from him.

Don’t fall in love. Don’t fall in love— it will kill you. Don’t fall in love— it’s not worth it.

_ What happens if he breaks my heart? _

_ I don’t know. _

His breaths gasp through his throat as he walks away. A sudden flare of pain lights along his ribs. It feels like tearing and burning and collapsing and shattering and _breaking and_ —

And it lasts only long enough for him to fall to his knees, to press a hand flat to his chest with another ragged breath. It lasts long enough for tears to spring to his eyes, long enough to curse Geralt of Rivia.

The terrible ticking of his heart only lasts one moment more. And, then— it stops entirely with a snap that echoes through every one of his bones. His ears ring but that's the only sound left to hear.

Silence settles into his body. The ticking finally stops. More than the temporary pauses of before-- it cuts off with the finality of a hangman's noose tightening during the final drop. His chest goes cold. It spreads, ice coating his bones and blood with the tender kiss of frost. 

He stands. His hand falls back to his side.

He lets out a heavy breath— a mistake, maybe, for everything else fades as his sigh disappears into the murky mountain air like a wandering spirit set free. 

Oh, sure, his thoughts rage. His mind screams and cries— sobs while Jaskier’s eyes remain hopelessly dry. He thinks that it’s not fair, that it hurts, that he deserves so much more than this—

But his feet lead him forward, away from Geralt.

And, with each step, the numbing coolness of his frozen clock spreads deeper into his veins until, at last, he’s feeling nothing, at all.


End file.
